


Perspectives

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:06:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7203965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five perspectives, from the outside looking in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspectives

_John_

He'd been worried for a while, but they just get on well for brothers. Some people might think they're too close, but its that they've grown up in each other's pockets, sharing everything from food to clothes to bruises. He knows he's not been entirely fair to either of them – they didn't get a proper childhood, and he's self-aware enough to know that's on him – but he's kept them safe, and in this world, that means a lot.

He watches them together and he's proud. They're a well-oiled machine in the field, always at each other's back. Even in non-lethal situations they're a team, and on the few occasions they have a kitchen he watches them dance around each other in the small space like clockwork. Dean's a cook, whereas Sam's a follower, in this if not much else. He accepts the plate of spaghetti bolognaise when it comes then turns in early, falling asleep to the low, indistinct murmur of their voices in the other room.

 

_Jess_

Sam is a complicated person, and that's what first interested her in him. He'd initially seemed a bit typical frat boy but without the frat – drinking too much, cutting loose from the pressures of home, out partying every night – but they moved in enough similar circles for her to talk to him more than once and she realised he was both smart and a gentleman. He didn't hit on her, even when she wore that slutty cat outfit for Hallowe'en. In the end, it took him three months before he stumbled over an invitation to dinner. They'd gone to a nice restaurant, where he admitted he knew nothing about wine and kept her laughing with stories of his first half year as a college student. He'd seen her home afterwards, and left her with a lingering peck on the cheek but no expectation of anything more. 

Sam is fun, is the thing. Yes, he's studious, but he's also up for anything and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, not to mention incredibly fit. And he worships her, everyone says so. She knows she glows when he's around – she's seen pictures – and she loves the way he smiles at her.

He's a bit of a mystery, but that's okay. She's almost certain they're in this for the long haul, and there'll be time enough to get to everything. In the meantime, she peels back layers. The first time he tells her about his family she feels like singing. Until he speaks of his brother Dean, and she sees the look on his face – bright and fractured as sunshine on rippled water.

 

_Ellen_

If she'd had her way, she would have kept the two boys with her. It wasn't fair of John, carting them around all the time. No wonder they grew up... different.

She breathes a sigh of relief when news through the grapevine reaches her of Sam going to college. And Stanford, of all places! He'd always been a smart one, but some ties run deep. Some bonds can't be broken, and others can, but send shrapnel shooting into every wound. 

So she accepts it, and thanks whatever is up there for it, and then John and Dean roll into the Roadhouse on a Thursday night and one look at the little boy she'd known, older, broken, sends her reeling. She puts Jo to bed early to indulge his tales and feed him sandwiches. As she smiles at his attempts at humour, inside, she feels the shrapnel burrowing.

 

_Jo_

Jo's proud to call herself an observer. Some people think it means passive, but she knows how important it is to go in knowing exactly where the cards will fall. She's a girl of action, but only once she can see all moves on the board.

She flirts with Dean when he turns up, little brother Sam (who she barely remembers) in tow – of course she does, she's had a crush on him for years – but it doesn't take more than an hour or two to observe that this? Is not a situation she wants to step into.

 

_Bobby_

He's always been careful not to see. He's known for a while – known in that thrum of undercurrent that first buzzed through the room as teenagers, the silences where otherwise words should be said, the conspicuous absence of others now that they're grown. Some of it's the life. Some of it's not. So he's careful to be there, because if anyone needs a proper father figure its these two, but also to keep his distance. Because while he knows, he doesn’t _know_ , and that makes all the difference.


End file.
